The AbibiNsroma Foundation has called for a just energy transition for poor countries and not increased fosil fuel dependency.
It called for the exclusion of associated facilities and large hydro plants, aligning foriegn trade policies with 1.5c Paris agreement target and the Sustainable Development Goals(SDG).
Mr Bob Amiteye, Convenor of the Foundation, was addressing representatives of some workers, youth groups and National Service Personnel in Tema at the launch of Just Energy transition by the Foundation.
He asked vulnerable societies to work with regional bodies to set up proper transparency, monitoring and compliance mechanisms to critically monitor all investments in the energy sector.
In a recorded message to the youth groups, Mr Yves Nii Noi Norte-Hanson, Member of Parliament for Tema Central, asked African countries to embark on a slow and cautious energy transition
The member of Ghana’s Parliamentary Committee on Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation
said any form of transition which did not leverage the comparative energy resource advantage of the implementating country would spell doom and gloom for its development.
Africa owned to herself and the future of her teeming youthful population the use of what nature had given her such as national gas, coal and petroleum to power herself into development and prosperity, he said.
According to him, Africa, an insignificant polluter, doing less than 4 per cent of global pollution, should be given access to modern cleaner technology to use her natural resources to build a formidable energy base for industrialisation.
He said solar and other green energy sources could warm and light up homes but cannot drive industrialization due to their wavering base load.
He said the youthful population of Africa were looking forward to jobs and some conforts in life and that the present leadership should not fail them.
He cautioned African countries not to depend on promises of financial resources to discard their plans of using their own resources for energy production because none of the promises and pledges for compensation had been fulfilled.
He mentioned South Africa as a country which scraped her coal plants for the promise of 8 billion dollars but now suffering unstable power supply because the so called green energy could not sustain its energy needs and that not even a cent of the promise was paid.
Ironically, some European countries went back to their coal power plants when natural gas from Russia was not forthcoming due to the Russia Ukraine War.
He said Indonesia had commissioned more coal plants to achieve low cost competitive power supply, wooing most multinationals into its industrial enclaves.
Indonesia sells 2 cents for kilowatts per hour while Ghana does 14 cents per kilowatts per hour.
‘Africa should not be the scape goat to clean up the mess of others,’ he said.
Members(Drivers) of various transport Unions sampled on energy transition backed the call for a cautious move so that proper thinking would go into how to go into green energy without compromising the long term energy needs of the country.
Source: Ghana News Agency